


Unfortunately, I'm Still Breathing

by msross



Category: Left 4 Dead (Video Games)
Genre: Bisexual Zoey, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationships, Found Family, It's all plantonic!!!, Minor Character Death, Platonic Relationships, Zoey-centric, Zombie Apocalypse, it's only mentioned in the first chap but bi zoey makes my heart hurt in the good way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 06:20:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29148867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msross/pseuds/msross
Summary: Only the really good and the really bad die early - But that's okay, because the world ended behind her back and Zoey's still breathing, so she must be somewhere in between. Lucky thing is, she's met three boys along the way to keep her shattering mental state steady.
Relationships: (mentioned in first chap but her gf dies lol), Zoey (Left 4 Dead) & Bill Overbeck (Left 4 Dead), Zoey (Left 4 Dead) & Francis (Left 4 Dead), Zoey (Left 4 Dead) & Louis (Left 4 Dead), Zoey (Left 4 Dead)/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 3





	Unfortunately, I'm Still Breathing

It was raining today. Each drop made a _pitter_ , sometimes even a _patter_ as it beat against the glass of the one (exactly one, neither she nor Amanda were even close to having the money for something so farfetched as _two_ ) window to grace her ugly plastered walls, lined with holes and scrapes and stains. The small bit of campus outside she was lucky enough to see was devoid of life; the numerous bodies that commonly crowded its’ pathways absent, completely missing, many sick and the weaker of those dead. It felt as if a piece of her life was gone, as seeing her peers everyday was routine to her. Even if she didn’t interact with them, or _like_ interacting with them for that matter.

The dorm around her was a mite too small for two people – cramped and claustrophobic with only room for two beds and a desk; dark, too- bathed in only the blue, gloomy glow that slithered in between her blinds from outside, with shadows creeping up the walls from every crevice the thin strands of light couldn’t reach, itching to swallow whatever it could get its hands on. She didn’t have the will to get up and turn the lights on anymore.

On the corner chipped oak desk sat a tiny television- her television, boxy and clunky and straight outta the nineties, _hers_. The thing was four-hundred and eighty dollars, four-hundred and eighty dollars out of her own pocket that she spent for such a thing, that was busted and dusty inside and out and old, but oh _god_ she was so, so very proud of herself when she was able to scrape together the money to afford it.

She recalled her parents’ faces when she told them about it; her mother’s wrinkled and aged features scrunched up in disgust at how cheap it was but her father, _oh_ , her father, he gathered her up into his arms and gave her the biggest hug she’s ever received and told her how proud of her he was, and she smiled and he smiled and for the rest of the day his eyes were painted with this overjoyed expression, because his baby girl was growing up and wasting her own money instead of _theirs_.

Zoey shrugged back into her pink comforter, swathing thin shoulders and an even thinner body (she’ll admit it, she was poor and couldn’t buy much (which was sad because by _god_ did she love to eat), but with citywide quarantine even travelling to the store was more difficult so she just _didn’t_.) as she fiddled with the finicky remote – sometimes it worked, and sometimes she wasn’t as lucky. She let her fingers glide over the buttons, clicking and clacking away with none of the familiar white shine from the screen indicating its startup to meet her efforts. A sigh slipped past her lips frustratedly, as she grasped the plastic thing a little harder.

She pressed it between her fingers, applying a little more pressure as she huffed angrily. Why couldn’t it just work for once? Something was going on, _goddammit_ , she _needed_ to know what was happening. She growled, her blanket falling from her shoulders as she hefted the plastic thing above her head, and within less than a second it was flying through the air towards the far wall. It hit the plaster, another dent added to the ugly wall didn’t really matter, she supposed, before it fell to the floor, slipping between the wall and Amanda’s bed.

That was going to be a bitch to find later.

Amanda was still gone, she realized. She was still in bed when the girl left- leaving to get some stuff at Walmart were the only words that made it through the sleepy haze that clouded her head at the time. She trusted Amanda, they were both civil adults and could do whatever with their time or whatever, but it was out of character for her art loving roommate to have been absent for so long without calling her at least _once_.

Amanda was a nice girl, with a love for watercolors and paint brushes and pretty red curls that bounced on her shoulders wherever she walked. She liked Amanda, like a _lot_. And at first, Amanda liked her a lot too.

Over the past couple of weeks their relationship became strained, stretched taught and their interactions tense as the Green Flu slunk its way down from New York, wreaking havoc as it slithered through each city and town and household and leaving only the seeds of destruction in the path it sowed. An ugly thing it was; those infected with it would void their stomachs so often they’d choke and their skin would become bruisy until it turned purple and gray and their minds would be so muddled with fever they couldn’t talk or walk or do anything. It’s funny, though. There are no reported and confirmed cases of death yet by the virus itself, and yet none of the sick have stopped being, well, _sick_ , yet.

Now that she thought about it, there weren’t any reports on it at _all_. While the local news stations were attempting to gather and broadcast information as quickly and as accurately as possible, the government officials and medical staff handling infected were being... extremely tight lipped. It was kind of frightening.

All she really knew right know was that the city was stuck in quarantine, and that she nor her peers could leave their stupid, cramped dorms unless it was to buy food or an emergency.

Zoey shifted back into her pillows, wrapping the comforter around her once more. Goddamn it was really cold all of a sudden.

Her body slumped on the bed as she buried herself further into the blanket; her tv wasn’t working, she missed her roommate, and she was sad and lonely and _bored_. It’s real stupid, that the world was probably dying around her (but they didn’t really know, did they? Thanks, government overlords), and her most prominent problem was that she was bored. Bored, bored, bored.

The world around her was too quiet. Philly was too quiet. She missed traffic and the hustle and bustle of school life at the University of Penn state and eating those really shitty pancakes with her kind-of not-really girlfriend at the Denny’s a couple blocks away because they couldn’t afford anything else.

She let her body splay over her rickety twin bed, lost in her head with fantasies of bad breakfast food and class, before a knock resonated within the room that suspiciously sounded like it came from behind the door on the wall behind her. At first, she thought that she had finally given into the insanity that came with deep, suffocating loneliness, and had started conjuring up auditory hallucinations to give the effect that there were, in fact, other people out there, but then another three sounded in rapid (frantic even) succession. She leaped up; her comfy blanket forgotten as she practically sprinted towards the back wall.

The door was unbolted and flung open in under a minute, and standing behind it was the girl of the hour. Stood there in front of Zoey was Amanda, but not really Amanda. The once pretty girl’s facial features were stretched gaunt, unrecognizable, and snot dribbled from her nose in a thin line that extended from her nostril to her chin (disgusting, god why didn’t she wipe it up?) but the funniest thing about the girl before her was that she was bruisy and grey. Her skin, oh god, her _skin_ : in under a few hours, pale and beautiful freckled limbs were painted an ugly, ugly color perched and stuck between black and white and at first, had it not been for how sick the girl looked, Zoey would have assumed that Amanda had become her own latest art project.

The redhead was slouched against the doorframe, eyes hazy and unfocused, her voice wheezy, as if she had run a mile under a minute,

“Help’m out, please,” she slurred.

Oh god Amanda was definitely sick.

“Did you catch hayfever or something while I was asleep? It’s been like an hour since you left,” she muttered as she shifted Amanda’s weight from the doorframe to her shoulders,

“No I, uh,” her roommate mumbled, “’Is bin almost four hours, ‘Zo.”

Zoey swallowed and rubbed her eye with her freehand as she guided the girl from the door to the bed parallel to her own – a pretty light blue color, with only two pillows sat at the head of it. Four hours? That couldn’t be right. She let her kind-of not-really girlfriend go, the girl falling into bed immediately.

“Mandy, I don’t think you’re thinking straight. It’s gotta have been an hour or two tops since you woke me up,”

“Turn,” she garbled, her voice muffled as spittle began to form and froth at her lips, “turn on the news,” and all of a sudden it boiled over and what must’ve been Amanda’s breakfast was all over the carpet.

“CHRIST!” Zoey yelped as her body tensed in surprise, because jesus that was a lot of vomit all over their floor, “Shit, are you okay?!”

“News…” Her voice was breathy, tired, but her words got the message across clearly. Zoey lingered there for a moment, hand outstretched towards the girl, because that amount of bodily fluids coming out of one person in that little time couldn’t be healthy, and there was a red substance mixed within it that looked suspiciously like blood, and by god she was so worried, but she complied.

The girl fell to her knees, letting her body slide under her roommate’s bed as she began to fish around blindly for the little plastic thing that was the absolute bane of her existence; dust bunnies, an old tank top, a box, but no goddamn remote.

She slithered in further, to the point where she was almost fully under the bed, before actually finding the stupid thing; she gripped it tightly, so tightly it almost broke in two, pushing herself outta the darkness and quickly jumping to her feet.

Amanda was still there on the bed, almost looking dead, not moving a muscle, her eyes clenched close. Zoey moved quickly, flitting to the other side of the room before clicking the power button, praying to some deity out there that it would work, and by god it _did_.

The moment the thing flickered with the life only a television could hold Zoey almost wanted to jump with joy, she was so happy. She took a minute to scroll through the channels, finding the news, hovering over it, clicking the select button, and there it was.

A finely dressed woman stared back at her from behind the screen – behind the reporter sat a CEDA trailer, and multiple people adorning hazmat suits tending to an infected man on a gurney.

_“—have ordered complete evacuation of all non-infected persons still within central city limits; those on the outer limits not evacuating are required by law to avoid all contact with infected individuals and secure their homes. Seal all windows – this can be done with any kind of tape, though preferably duct tape, and anything else one can find around the home, such as plastic bed covers. It is advised to barricade doors. Those infected with the virus have begun to demonstrate violent behavior. Do not let any possibly infected persons into your household--“_

Zoey’s prior worried expression twisted into that of horror at the woman’s words. What the actual shit was going on? Was the world really ending outside her door? Holy god, was she that clueless?

The girl clutched the remote harder as her eyes slid to Amanda’s limp body, the voice from the television becoming muffled as her ears began to ring.

“’Manda?” She asked hesitantly, “What’s going _on_?”

The woman stirred slightly, rolling over to let her eyes meet Zoey’s. They were half lidded and cloudy- that worried her. Her mouth moved a bit, though no words left her lips. It took her a moment of nothing but grunts and groans before she could form real words-

“’fuggin,” she slurred, “saw a guy get shot, by ‘tha cops. Think he waz sick. He didn’t,” she let a few coughs out, ugly and rasping as if she had been choking, “dude didn’t even _flinch_. ‘Iss that zombie apocalypse you always wanted, yeh?”

Zoey tensed at that, “Stop bullshitting me, what’s the hell is happening out there?”

“’m not joking, Zo.”

Amanda doesn’t talk again. The only noise that breaks the night’s silence is her roommates raspy breathing; Otherwise, it’s completely quiet. Zoey doesn’t dare turn on the tv again. The hours pass slowly, so slowly they bleed together and she doesn’t care if it’s 1AM or 2AM anymore, really. It’s quiet, so so quiet, even the rain has stopped.

The clock above her bed keeps ticking, ceaselessly, and in that moment, she wants to snap the goddamn thing in half.

And then there’s screaming. Somewhere, somewhere in her building someone is _screaming_ like they’re in the worst agony of their life; ear piercing, long and slow and loud, as if they were being mauled by a bear or they watched their child die before them. She wants to cry. Zoey actually wants to cry. The rain has stopped, and the sky is as clear as it could be in the middle of Philadelphia, and just down the street right around where the Denny’s is something has burst into flames, and someone is _screaming_ and the city burns before her.

She wants to grab her shit and run, grab Amanda and run, but Amanda isn’t moving. The girl doesn’t even react to the shrieking, and Zoey can’t tell if her roommate is sleeping or dead. She can’t lift her- Amanda is like a head taller than her, and Zoey might’ve run track but she can’t outrun whatever is causing the screaming with someone so tall on her back.

There’s more screaming now, multiple cries coming together to form some sort of hellish choir, straight from the darkest depths of her nightmares, and Amanda twitches.

Ever since Amanda had stopped talking, she had not seen her roommate talk, move; she doesn’t know whether her slight twitches are a good thing or bad thing at this point.

Gray fingers flutter with life, and within less than a second the girl’s whole body moves. Her movements are jerky, and her limbs spasm to life as she tries to push herself off the bed, as if the woman had forgotten how to walk within the few hours she had lost consciousness.

The woman’s chest convulses as she gets up, her arms hang limp; her eyes are still cloudy and gray, and she looks so _confused,_ so _angry_.

“Mandy?” Zoey says, breaking the silence between them as she peaks out from under her comforter.

The woman’s head whips around to let her gaze meet Zoey’s. She doesn’t respond.

“’Manda? Are you feeling okay?”

She stumbles closer, eyes lolling as spittle drips down her chin. At her silence, Zoey shuffles back against the wall; why wasn’t she responding? What was wrong with her?

The woman before her trembles, her whole body shaky and shivering as she slinks closer; a low growl slips between blue lips, and in that moment Zoey realizes that that isn’t her roommate. She pushes herself off of her own bed, moving towards the door, slowly as humanly possible, before Amanda sprints towards her and tackles her to the carpeted ground.

She lets out a cry, swinging wildly as the woman pins her, pressing and pushing against her face to try and hold her back, but the woman doesn’t relent. Her infected roommate lets a mix between a bark and a growl slip from her tongue, mimicking Zoey’s movements and swinging her fists at her.

The girl hits her, hits her hard, and Zoey hits her back. Zoey’s fist meets her face, sucker punches her right between the eyes, and oh god, and her whole body wasn’t already bruised her face would be turning black and blue; her head cocks back at the punch, Zoey hits her again- smashes her fingers into her nose, and the girl (infected, zombie even) snatches her own hands back away from Zoey to claw at her face. A fatal mistake, really.

Zoey gathers all of the strength her five-foot-five, runner _not_ fighter body could possibly possess, and mentally prepares herself to do something she may really regret, and she _pushes_.

Her roommate shrieks as her body is propelled into the carpet like a ragdoll, and in the chaos Zoey jumps to her feet, slams her shoe into the girl’s ribcage; the woman keeps letting small squeals slip from her tongue, as if she were a dying animal, and not the person Zoey has lived with for almost a year now. Zoey strikes her again, keeps beating at the girls chest with her foot under she hears a sickening ‘crunch’ from under her. Her ribs break, snap like extremely strong toothpicks.

The girl paws at her sternum, cries out, keeps laying on the goddamn carpet as blood begins to spew from her mouth.

It takes exactly three minutes of the infected woman bucking floor, sobbing (it wasn’t sobbing. Sobbing is human, so undeniably human, an action that can only be committed by someone with the same cognitive functions as her, the same sentience as her. This thing was not _human_.), with blood bubbling up from somewhere in her chest only to spill down her lips, before she dies.

Zoey sits perched on her desk chair, watches the whole time.

Her head’s fuzzy, the world around her is blurry; it’s hard to move, as if the air had turned to water suddenly and she were drowning in it. She breathes in, breathes out. Not water just yet, good. She sighs, breathes in again. Amanda can’t do that now. Amanda’s lungs were probably punctured in the fight.

Amanda is also very, very dead.

She rubs her temples, pushes her hair from her eyes. Her gaze glides over to her roommate, to the body on her floor. Blood is still leaking from its mouth, and she is the one who caused this. The dark of the room around her still isn’t right looking; it’s all too fuzzy.

Christ. Jesus Christ.

An ugly pressure bubbles up in her stomach, forces its way up through her to hide behind her eyes. Oh, how her eyes want to cry, and yet her brain says no. Her brain still says no and her soft, salty tears slip down her cheeks and oh, guess her body overrules her mind. She thinks her body overruled her brain in the fight as well.

Zoey didn’t mean to hit her so hard, hit her so much. She sniffles, she cries. She blows her nose into her hand, gets snot all over herself, pushes herself up from the chair and lets her hand press against the back of it to steady herself. She cries, long and drawn out and high pitched. Zoey cries.

Zoey cries over a dead roommate and the end of the world outside her dorm room door.

**Author's Note:**

> hello. comments are my food and i am extremely starved; even negative feedback is appreciated, so long as its constructive. please do not be afraid to feed me I Do Not Bite thanks for coming to my ted talk
> 
> this is also not beta read, please keep that in mind.


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